


Abort

by lightgetsin



Category: The Dark Is Rising
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-24
Updated: 2003-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightgetsin/pseuds/lightgetsin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bran made his choice. Now he has to live with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abort

Will comes in the summer of Bran’s sixteenth year. He has not been back since they were twelve, and there is a strange moment when they see each other, taller and broader and recast somehow in the mold of coming adulthood. Will is changed and not, older and yet the same, and Bran feels all of his strangeness, all of his unfittingness when Will hugs him warmly.

They spend their days together, as they always have before. Will tags along when Bran works, helping out when he can, and laughing easily with Bran at his city-bred ineptness. They roam the hills for hours at a stretch, only each other, a few dogs, and the echoes for company. Will is just as Bran remembers, just as he knew he would be, yet more. Bran has known that he is in love since he was twelve years old, but knowing it and measuring his own breath by Will’s as they sprawl side by side at the crest of a grassy hill, baking in the sun, are two different things. It is not until now, with Will in touching distance every day, that Bran allows himself to begin to think the things he has not dared for the past four years. They make his head ache.

 

It is early evening, and they are walking back to the Evans’ when Will speaks of the Drews.

“They send their love,” he says, shielding his eyes against the dazzle of the setting sun.

“Do they?” Bran asks.

“Well, Jane and Barney do,” Will says. There is a smile in his voice, but not on his face. His hand still hovers before his eyes, and Bran somehow knows that if he were to drop it, they would be far away.

“Hmm,” says Bran noncommittally.

“Simon is going to university,” Will continues. “Jane can’t really decide what she wants to do. And Barney—you’ll like this—Barney has gotten really into mysticism. He, you know, meditates and all that.”

“Does he?” Bran asks. Will has yet to look at him once in the whole conversation, and Bran feels as if he is sliding away, farther and farther out of reach. It is a feeling not unfamiliar with Will. “I used to do that,” he says suddenly.

Will’s head snaps around, and he lifts an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Well, not meditate,” Bran says hastily. “But I used to go up into the hills and try to do things. Move pebbles with my mind or make a stalk of grass grow taller and things.”

“Did it work?” Will asks casually.

“No,” Bran says, and finds a short little laugh. “Of course not. Just kid stuff.”

Will nods and smiles a little indulgently. “I still have trouble picturing you really young,” he says.

Bran, who was in fact fourteen when he attempted these feats, smiles back. “You and the world, boyo. You and the world.”

***

The summer buzzes by on the wings of small, irritating little bugs that bite everything and everybody. Bran is in a great deal of pain, as he always is in the summer. His eyes smart constantly, even behind his darkest pair of glasses, and his skin feels raw and scorched no matter how much sun block he puts on. His head aches almost constantly, and he spends troubled nights, catching short snatches of often interrupted sleep.

It is worse this year, he thinks.

Will tans beautifully, and he seems utterly immune to the attentions of the bugs. Bran feels a strange doubling on these afternoons, lounging about with Will after the work is done. Will is so comfortable and easy, something Bran suspects he can be in almost any setting. And that is the other side of it, the knowledge that Will is wonderful here as he would be anywhere. He falls into the life of a Welsh shepherd with the same ease Bran knows he would become quiet and scholarly in a library, or smiling and friendly at a party. He feels very close to Will when they sit together as the sun sets, sometimes reading, sometimes talking, sometimes saying nothing at all. He also feels incredibly far away when Will goes quiet and distant. Bran can never reach him when he is like that.

Will is the same as always, open, deceptively easy to read, impossible to argue with. He knows a lot of very smart things, and has a way of telling them to Bran without making it seem as if Bran is inferior for not having been educated as Will was. It took Bran all of five minutes of acquaintance with Will to know that he was the one, to know that this was love, and that knowing has not changed in the intervening years with few letters and no visits.

***

They are coming down the last slope, the sheep an unhappy knot before them, harassed by the dogs as they stop to snatch a few last mouthfuls of heather. Will strolls beside Bran, hands in his pockets, quiet and pensive.

John Rowlands comes across them there, an amiable smile breaking out on his face as he sees them. They have met him before during the summer--it would be impossible not to with their lands and work adjoining as they do--but Bran has always rushed the encounters, making excuses for himself and Will to take them away as soon as possible. Will tolerates this with no comment, and Bran suspects that Will knows how Rowlands disturbs him.

“Evenin’ lads,” John says as he approaches.

“Hullo,” Will says.

Rowlands falls into step with them, surveying the sheep. “Going to be problems with that one,” he says, gesturing at a ewe, heavy with lamb, who is lagging behind the rest.

Bran, who has been watching her for several weeks now, nods. “Off her season,” he agrees.

John is wearing black, as he has every day for four years. He is stark against the textured hillside, and he makes Bran’s headache fiercer.

Will chats with him as they descend the last few lengths of the slope, but Bran stays silent. He sticks his hands in his pockets, mirroring Will, and clenches them into fists. The bite of his nails into his palms is welcome, and he only relaxes when John waves a cheerful goodbye and splits off for his own home.

Bran dreams of it again that night, of he and Will and the Drews and everything.

***

It is some time before Bran realizes the obvious. They are lying side by side on a springy mattress of heather, the sheep spread about them, Will’s nose in a book and Bran’s chin in his cupped palm. He tried to read earlier, but the words swam dizzyingly before him and his eyes ached. He feels tired all the time now, and not just from the fitful sleep, he knows.

There is a sudden commotion up the slope, the snarling of several dogs then a yelp of pain. Bran starts to push himself up, but Will is faster, sliding to his feet with that surprising grace of his.

“I’ll get it,” he says, and lopes off up the slope, whistling sharply at the dogs. Bran collapses back onto his stomach and lets out a great sigh as the pressure in his skull seems to ease. He lies there, idly combing his fingers through the short grass, working to relax the strained muscles of his face and neck. He is nearly asleep, soothed by the familiar sounds of the sheep and the feel of the breeze ruffling over his back when Will returns.

“They found a stick to fight over,” he says, dropping down next to Bran.

Bran is utterly unprepared for the stab of pain between his temples the moment Will settles close, and he gasps. Will turns, frowning.

“Alright?” he asks, concerned.

“Yeah,” Bran says, blinking rapidly. “I’m…fine.”

Will leans closer, squinting at him. “You sure?” he asks again. “You’re awful pale.”

His face is so close, so open and so dear, and Bran would have to do very little to kiss him. Will wouldn’t mind, he knows—Will would welcome it, he’s pretty sure.

“I’m sure,” he says, and turns his face away.

He can feel Will’s gaze on him for long moments, and he cannot bring himself to look. He knows that if he does he will see the fathomless Will, the one that slips out in unguarded moments, the one that makes Bran feel very small and very young.

Then Will looks away and reaches for his book again, and Bran relaxes as much as he can.

***

The next day Bran leaves hours before the sun rises. Owen is still abed, and Bran does not leave him a note, nor word for Will. He hustles the irritated sheep and sleepy dogs out into the yard, and heads up the hill with purpose. It is strange not having Will at his side, but he puts that thought away.

He finds a hollow he knows, a secret place tucked away in the folds of the mountain. It is a place he has never gotten around to bringing Will, though it is very beautiful. He lets the sheep spread out and stands, hands loose at his sides, gazing around him at the slope of the mountain on three sides, and the vista of the valley on the fourth.

He does not know exactly why he is here, and he ponders this as the sun rises before him. He stands utterly still, allows his feet to go to sleep, his legs to vanish from his consciousness until he would not know they were there unless he were to glance down. He stands until he feels fused to the mountain, a simple, small outgrowth that happens to be a man.

Then he spreads his hands and waits for something to come, some magic to appear and save him. There are things in the world, he knows, great things, mysterious things, and he has always felt that these mountains are home to many of them. And he needs magic right now, needs it with the desperate ache of his head, needs it to help him understand what Will is doing to him, how Will hurts him just by being close, and perhaps even more by being far away. He needs a magic to reach Will in those moments, when his body is there but it is not Will in it.

Nothing comes but the heat of the sun, and the echoing vastness of the mountain. Bran thinks of Barney Drew, meditating on his knees, believing in something and reaching for it, and laughs bitterly. He is just as foolish. He is a simple human, and there is not an iota of magic in him.

And that, he knows, is the only answer he’s going to get.

He limps home at dusk, tired and hungry and aching. Will shows up as usual the next day and says nothing about Bran’s abandonment other than to ask whether he had a nice day. Bran says no and welcomes his returning headache as Will walks beside him.

***

Will begins to look expectant sometimes, when they lie together in the meager shade of an outcropping during the hottest part of the day. He turns on his side to face Bran and steals quick, furtive looks at him over the top of his book. This is so Will, Will his only friend, and so much not the other Will that Bran almost succumbs more than once. He is drawn to Will unceasingly, and the delighted smile blossoming on Will’s face the one time he was foolish enough to forget and lean close for a kiss hurts worse than his pounding head. He pulls back and turns hastily away. At his back Will is still and silent and confused.

There is awkwardness for a time, but it fades. It is difficult for Will to be awkward, Bran thinks. But Will still expects, still waits, perhaps a bit impatiently. He will wait for Bran, because that is what Will does. He will be waiting for a very long time, Bran thinks. He loves Will too much to destroy himself for the sake of it. That would hurt Will as Bran knows nothing else in the world can. It gives him a surprised jolt to realize that he has learned this lesson of patience, paid the price for impatience, before Will has. Bran has made his choice, and now he has to live with it.

***

The ewe goes into labor on a muggy afternoon not a week later. It is just chance that puts them nearby at the time. They finish mending a fence more quickly than expected, and take the opportunity of the extra time before a new task is assigned to have a bit of a ramble. The moment they come upon the small herd they both know something is amiss.

The ewe crouches in the meager shade of a scrubby little bush, all four legs splayed and her head bent as she labors. She is early and off season, and Bran has a presentiment of bad things to come.

She hardly notices them as they approach. Will kneels at her head as Bran crouches down to check her progress.

“No good,” he mutters, squinting, and then probing gently. “It’s all turned around.”

Will comes to look for himself, and winces. “Will she be able to deliver?” he asks.

Bran shrugs. “Don’t know. We’ll just have to wait.”

She can, though she gives her life for it. Bran reaches in bare-handed more than once to attempt to help turn the lamb for easier labor, but gets only bloody for his efforts. They can’t move her, and they have no veterinary supplies, not even soap and water.

Will crouches beside him, and he reaches in once himself, and Bran knows he is going to try and pull the lamb out.

“Don’t,” he says, catching Will’s wrist. “You’ll make it worse.”

Will subsides, but his hands work unhappily at each other.

The blood comes fast and fierce towards the end, and the lamb is soaked crimson when it is finally expelled. Bran reaches for it, swiping blood and the remnants of the birth sack away from its face with a practiced finger. It flops weakly and makes no sound.

Will moves beside him, and Bran jumps. He has almost forgotten that Will was there. Will extends a hand to the lamb, then draws it back. Bran sighs. There is nothing to be done, he suspects.

The lamb does not survive the night. It is too small, too weak, desperately hungry and unable to suck. Bran sits beside it, trying to succor it with warm milk and blankets. Will offers to stay with him, but Bran refuses.

He leaves it cold and small after three in the morning and staggers to the house. The artificial lights in the bathroom make his eyes throb, and he is a vision of pale, bloody horror in the mirror.

He strips down, washes as best he can, then leans on the sink, breathing hard, his palms pressed to his temples. This is the worst headache he’s ever had, worse than the ones John Rowlands gives him, worse than the ones the sun gives him, worse than the ones the dreams give him, that Will gives him.

Bran’s empty stomach churns, and he falls to his knees with a painful jar before the toilet. He is sick until he fears his guts will come out, until he sees a bright drop of blood in the toilet.

He kneels on the cold floor, face pressed to the toilet seat, breathing the scent of his own ruin and waiting for the pain to subside. He aches for Will, for his calming presence and mild voice, but he does not think he could face the pain that being near Will brings him.

Thoughts of Will bring all of it with them, and the deep ache in his stomach will not let Bran forget. Will is an Old One, and Bran will never tell that he remembers everything. Will told him of Hawkin once, before he was supposed to forget, before the Dark made its last, desperate stand in his own head. Bran is mortal now, and he remembers things a mortal shouldn’t, and it is killing him.


End file.
